Khali Purse of Billionaires is about people striving to be Bill Gates from the abyss of poverty: Maxwell Jose

Filmmaker Maxwell Jose’s Khali Purse of Billionaires, which went on floors after the pandemic restrictions were lifted back in 2020, is finally gearing up for release. The movie, which has Dhyan Sreenivasan, Aju Varghese, Arjun Ashokan and Tanvi Ram as part of the cast, revolves around the start-up culture in Kochi and focuses on a duo’s struggles to make it big.

Also read: Exclusive! Dhyan Sreenivasan: Had signed multiple projects during the pandemic as I felt financially insecure 

In an exclusive chat with OTTplay, Maxwell tells us, “The film is about two youngsters, who don’t have any financial backing, pursuing a big dream; it’s about a duo who strive to be Bill Gates from the abyss of poverty. The IT companies that exist in homes in Kochi form the background of the movie.”

On Dhyan and Arjun’s characters, the director says, “Dhyan plays a common youth, who is also concerned about his family. His father is a farmer. Arjun Ashokan plays a failed entrepreneur, but he doesn’t take any shortcuts or resort to any malpractices. He has accepted that he is unsuccessful and carries on. However, both Dhyan and Aju’s characters, at a particular point in time due to their familial pressures, have to do something that is unauthorized.”

Both Dhyan and Arjun’s popularity has also soared since the pandemic, especially among the youth. Did the delay in the release of the film actually become a boon for the makers? “A delay is not something that you can control, but I don’t believe that it will have a huge impact on the film’s content. Obviously, if the film had released back then, it would have been more relatable. Now, I don’t know how people are going to accept it. But that’s part of it,” says Maxwell.

Incidentally, the filmmaker was set to start work on another film - Adukkala: The Kitchen Manifesto – that starred Lena and Dhyan in 2020. “It is my dream project and I put in a lot of work for it. It’s just that on the very day the shoot was set to begin, the lockdown was announced. Also, because it is planned as a big film, a lot of locations had to be changed. The good news is that we will be beginning the shoot by the first week of December 2023,” he says, adding that Nepal will be the main location of the movie that will have a few changes in the cast.